Any actual names, non original content, or likenesses of celebrities are used in a fictitious and parodic manner.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE! OR IN WHICH DOCTOR SARAH BELLUM DOES SOMETHING SCIENETIFIC AND KEVIN FINDS ANOTHER LAYER IN THE ONION THAT IS SLOWLY BECOMING A METAPHOR FOR SOME SINISTER CONSPIRACY THING THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE HAPPENING.
“Everyone's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, ooooh, suddenly you've gone too far!” - Professor Hubert Farnsworth, mad scientist of the 31st century.
“Science!” - The old guy in the video for Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”, who of course said “Science!” a lot.
Where is everybody?
Doctor Sarah Bellum wondered as she flipped on the lights of one of the research labs at the Alberta Research Council’s Vegreville compound. Kevin brought in the now deceased corn stock monster as Donnie kept the curious three year old Hailey from causing too much of a mess in the lab.
“Hey no snooping around!” she hollered at Kevin, who was looking inside a filing cabinet. “One of the rules for me bringing you in here was you don’t do anything ridiculous, got it?”
Kevin looked up. “Relax, doctor. These appear to be empty anyways. Probably cleared out by a clean-up team as the rest of the workers here all ran for the hills.”
Donnie looked at Kevin after wrestling an empty Petri dish from Hailey. “Do you think they took ManBearPig with them too?”
“If they did, I would assume ManBearPig would have fought his way out and made his way to sweet freedom like Chief.”
Donnie had a confused look on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about” is what he wanted to say, but with little ears in his presence went for the more kid-friendly “What are you referring to now?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “’One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’? Chief the supposedly mute Indian guy that opened up to Jack Nicholson’s character and then smothered him to death after having a lobotomy done to him – does any of this sound familiar? You know for someone who works in a movie store, you sure know little about classic cinema.”
Donnie simply shook his head. “I still don’t get why you wanted to come here with us. Why couldn’t the crazy redhead come with us instead of you?”
Kevin began to explain “Because not only as assistant regional manager…”
“Assistant TO the regional manager.” Donnie corrected him.
Kevin looked a little displaced by that little correction but continued to speak nonetheless. “I know I know. Anyways, not only would my experience with the agricultural industry be viable in the event of plants and grain crops potentially gaining signs of becoming sentient beings, I am also associate chief of the regional emergency response team, a volunteer survival instructor for the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and proficient in various weapons and hand-to-hand combat techniques should that situation arise. Dean, on the other hand, has the temp and a paramedic that is too controlled by her emotions. I chose to give him a fighting chance.”
Donnie simply shook his head in confusion. “You know, I hear of all these things and yet I have to see you accomplish anything of use to us!”
Sarah spoke up “Will the two of you put your members back in your trousers and come over here?” she requested of them to do. Kevin complied while Donnie went back to keeping his daughter out of getting into trouble.
“Look here and tell me what you see.” Sarah asked Kevin to do with a microscope. Underneath the lens was a cross section of the one sample that Ariel had procured.
“All I see is magnified corn kernels mixed with what appears to be strains of pesticides and other artificial additives.” Kevin said.
“Yes, but after trying to cross-reference this sample with known chemicals in our database, nothing comes up.” Sarah replied back slightly frustrated.
“So, try and access the experimental files. There has to be an answer!” Kevin insisted.
“I tried. Everything other than the basic files has either been purged from the system or is in a secured file that even I cannot access.” Sarah sighed.
“You know, Ryan is good with computers! He may have been able to hack it or something!” Donnie shouted from the far corner of the lab.
“The temp is good at where he is at already!” Kevin shouted back.
Sarah just shook her head at the two men acting like children trying to upstage each other. “Well, then I cut open one of the cobs here and look.” She said as she handed a half section of the cob to Kevin. He then looked at the center and noticed something odd about the middle section.
“It appears to be… eww!” Kevin appeared to be slightly disgusted. “Alive? But how?” he asked.
“I do not know fully why yet,” Sarah went on to explain. “But after doing a brief autopsy on what I can only guess was the head of the life form that Ariel took down, this is even weirder.”
She brought Kevin over to a table where the full corn monster was laid upon a metal table. She pointed to the head, which was cut open to reveal what looked the basic formations of a brain. “Since this is way out of my league, I thought I would get your hypothesis of what is going on.” Sarah requested of Kevin.
“Well, obviously it appears to be a brain. I would say it is similar to that of an infant in that it is not fully developed. Which would explain why they did not attack us and seemed more curious about us being there than simply fighting us.” Kevin theorized.
Donnie covered his daughter’s ears. “How in the fuck do you know about brains?” he asked Kevin.
“Okay – one, basic brain development was in high school biology; and two I dated a pre-med neurosurgeon and she showed me a lot of pictures of brains. That and we did it a couple times in the morgue. She was a weird one for sure. Then she developed the habit of necrophilia.” Kevin replied back.
Both Sarah and Donnie had a disgusted look on their face. “Seriously?” asked Sarah.
“Yes.” Kevin answered. “Fact – one in seventy-five people involved with working with the deceased are either closeted necrophiliacs or become necrophiliacs within one year of entering their profession of choice.”
“You know, you lead a very strange and disgusting life!” Donnie stated.
“That will be a discussion for another time.” Kevin insisted. “Meanwhile, we need to figure out if this is an isolated incident or if we are going for come across some friends of old corny here who may be more developed mentally and intend to have us for dinner!”
Just then, the door to the lab began to open. At the entranceway was a woman, somewhere in her late forties to early fifties, with short brown hair and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She was also wearing a lab coat and looked rather crossed over the face there are strange people in the facilities.
“Doctor Bellum?” the lady asked. “Why are you here and why are there others in here with you.”
Kevin approached the woman. “Relax, we have authorization to be here…”
The lady interrupted Kevin, who had shown her a security pass he was wearing around his neck “Well, first of all, that says ‘Guest’ on it, and second of all guests are not allowed in here.”
Sarah looked up from her work station and recognized the woman as Julia Katz, the associate director of this particular branch of the Alberta Research Council.
“Miss Katz? What are you doing here?” Sarah asked.
“I was alerted by security that someone was doing unauthorized lab work.” Julia responded in a cold, methodical way that seemed to raise suspicions of what her intentions are.
“I apologize, Julia, but I tried calling the offices and there was no answer and when we came here, there appeared to be no one here.” Sarah said in her defense.
“Doctor Bellum, if this were normal operating practices, I would have your guests escorted and put you up for disciplinary action.” Julia seemed to be droning on in a catatonic tone. “However, in light of recent events, I am willing to look the other way if you take everyone out of here now and leave Vegreville immediately.”
Kevin spoke up “Just a second here. Hi, we haven’t been properly introduced here. Kevin Brody, assistant regional manager, Cargill AgHorizons…”
Julia coldly interrupted him. “Oh sweet Jesus, you are real. I thought you were a hoax or joke created by some of our lab technicians here. Did you really think do insane experiments that sin against nature?”
Kevin looked confused. He tried to speak “I don’t quite follow you.”
Julia walked towards Kevin and simply stared at him. “For a creature that seems intelligent, you are quite blissfully ignorant towards science, research and development.” She said softly in his ear.
Sarah looked perplexed by Julia’s actions. While Sarah had only met her boss a few times, this seemed totally out of character for her. “Are you okay?” Sarah asked.
Julia looked now at Sarah and started to walk towards her. “I am perfectly fine, Doctor Bellum. In fact, I have never felt so liberated in my entire life. And all it took was a little nano probe that one of our teams in Calgary were developing. Nanotechnology is quite fascinating, would you not agree, Mister Brody?”
“I would say so.” Kevin replied.
“Doctor Bellum, what would be your opinions?” Julia directed her question to Sarah.
“I work with plants mostly so I wouldn’t be qualified to offer an opinion.” Sarah responded.
“Pity,” Julia said with little or almost no emotion. “Have you seen what Vegreville looks like since you returned?”
“We came from the back way so no.” Sarah said.
Julia motioned for everyone in the room to follow her. “It would be beneficial for you all to come with me.” She insisted.
Vegreville looked the same for most parts. Well, except for the fact that the entire town was covered in giant growths of vines. Every house, business, landmark, and stranded vehicles were all covered in the growth of vines. Kevin looked at one of the vines with some interest. They appeared to be in a state of perpetual motion. He broke one of the growths off and studied the inside and became startled to see the growth he broke off started to grow again.
“Fascinating, is it not?” Julia Katz said. “The age of the plant has begun and all it took was the first strike of mankind’s need to destroy one another.”
Kevin looked to Sarah and asked her “Did you know anything about this?”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. “Not to my knowledge. This seems way out of my area of expertise anyways.”
“Okay, so the corn monsters we came across, are they part of this little project of yours?” Kevin asked Julia.
Julie replied with machine-like precision. “No. The mutated corn stalks are an abomination caused by man’s own design. We are perfection. We are the next form of evolution. We are the perfect blend of superior technology and plant simplicity, minus the insatiable need of man to destroy and annihilate one another.”
Kevin looked intrigued and then had a look on his face like he just came up with a brilliant plan to maybe stop or at least cripple this manmade form of evolution.
“So, let me pose this question to you Miss Katz,” Kevin spoke and continued to go on. “Am I right in assuming that the nanoprobes you have inside you are infused with the genetic material of plants?”
Julia responded. “Correct.”
“And by your earlier tone and condemnation of the human race, am I to also assume that the plants wish to be the dominate form of life on Earth, right?”
“Assumption correct”
Sarah and Donnie both looked confused as to Kevin’s tactics. “What are you doing?” Sarah asked quietly.
Kevin looked back at the Bellums. “Trust me on this one, okay?” Kevin told them as he went back to speaking to Julia, who seemed more machine than woman by now. “So, let me pose this question to you – if you have been given this ability by humans, which is a creature whom you abhor and view all of their designs to be ‘abominations’ like the corn monsters, does this not make you and your fellow vines here an abomination?”
Julia paused. She looked up, as if she was processing the question posed by Kevin. “No” she replied. Then another pause “But if we are made by imperfect beings… impossible… we are perfection… but created by imperfection…. system error… error!”
Suddenly, the head of Julia Katz, associate director of the Alberta Research Council began to balloon up while she kept repeating “System error!” over and over until the head finally exploded. A green-colored sticky substance sprayed all over the place. Even the vines, which were once strong and vibrant, began to shrivel up and die. As everyone wiped the green slime-like substance off of their respective faces, Donnie posed the question to Kevin: “How in the hell did you know to do that?”
Kevin took off his glasses to clean off the slime and answered Donnie’s question. “It was a basic logic paradox question I posed to… whatever the fuck that was. Surely I thought they would have made them able to withstand logic paradoxes.”
Sarah picked up one of the shriveled up vines. “I don’t understand. Why activate a faulty experiment if that what this is.”
“I have a feeling that perhaps like the corn monsters, this could all be beta tests for something more sinister.” Kevin stated.
Donnie, once again covering Hailey’s ears, asked “What the fuck are you going on about now?”
Kevin just looked at Donnie and matter-of-factly said. “I have no fucking clue right now.
Doctor Sarah Bellum wondered as she flipped on the lights of one of the research labs at the Alberta Research Council’s Vegreville compound. Kevin brought in the now deceased corn stock monster as Donnie kept the curious three year old Hailey from causing too much of a mess in the lab.
“Hey no snooping around!” she hollered at Kevin, who was looking inside a filing cabinet. “One of the rules for me bringing you in here was you don’t do anything ridiculous, got it?”
Kevin looked up. “Relax, doctor. These appear to be empty anyways. Probably cleared out by a clean-up team as the rest of the workers here all ran for the hills.”
Donnie looked at Kevin after wrestling an empty Petri dish from Hailey. “Do you think they took ManBearPig with them too?”
“If they did, I would assume ManBearPig would have fought his way out and made his way to sweet freedom like Chief.”
Donnie had a confused look on his face. “What the fuck are you talking about” is what he wanted to say, but with little ears in his presence went for the more kid-friendly “What are you referring to now?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “’One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’? Chief the supposedly mute Indian guy that opened up to Jack Nicholson’s character and then smothered him to death after having a lobotomy done to him – does any of this sound familiar? You know for someone who works in a movie store, you sure know little about classic cinema.”
Donnie simply shook his head. “I still don’t get why you wanted to come here with us. Why couldn’t the crazy redhead come with us instead of you?”
Kevin began to explain “Because not only as assistant regional manager…”
“Assistant TO the regional manager.” Donnie corrected him.
Kevin looked a little displaced by that little correction but continued to speak nonetheless. “I know I know. Anyways, not only would my experience with the agricultural industry be viable in the event of plants and grain crops potentially gaining signs of becoming sentient beings, I am also associate chief of the regional emergency response team, a volunteer survival instructor for the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and proficient in various weapons and hand-to-hand combat techniques should that situation arise. Dean, on the other hand, has the temp and a paramedic that is too controlled by her emotions. I chose to give him a fighting chance.”
Donnie simply shook his head in confusion. “You know, I hear of all these things and yet I have to see you accomplish anything of use to us!”
Sarah spoke up “Will the two of you put your members back in your trousers and come over here?” she requested of them to do. Kevin complied while Donnie went back to keeping his daughter out of getting into trouble.
“Look here and tell me what you see.” Sarah asked Kevin to do with a microscope. Underneath the lens was a cross section of the one sample that Ariel had procured.
“All I see is magnified corn kernels mixed with what appears to be strains of pesticides and other artificial additives.” Kevin said.
“Yes, but after trying to cross-reference this sample with known chemicals in our database, nothing comes up.” Sarah replied back slightly frustrated.
“So, try and access the experimental files. There has to be an answer!” Kevin insisted.
“I tried. Everything other than the basic files has either been purged from the system or is in a secured file that even I cannot access.” Sarah sighed.
“You know, Ryan is good with computers! He may have been able to hack it or something!” Donnie shouted from the far corner of the lab.
“The temp is good at where he is at already!” Kevin shouted back.
Sarah just shook her head at the two men acting like children trying to upstage each other. “Well, then I cut open one of the cobs here and look.” She said as she handed a half section of the cob to Kevin. He then looked at the center and noticed something odd about the middle section.
“It appears to be… eww!” Kevin appeared to be slightly disgusted. “Alive? But how?” he asked.
“I do not know fully why yet,” Sarah went on to explain. “But after doing a brief autopsy on what I can only guess was the head of the life form that Ariel took down, this is even weirder.”
She brought Kevin over to a table where the full corn monster was laid upon a metal table. She pointed to the head, which was cut open to reveal what looked the basic formations of a brain. “Since this is way out of my league, I thought I would get your hypothesis of what is going on.” Sarah requested of Kevin.
“Well, obviously it appears to be a brain. I would say it is similar to that of an infant in that it is not fully developed. Which would explain why they did not attack us and seemed more curious about us being there than simply fighting us.” Kevin theorized.
Donnie covered his daughter’s ears. “How in the fuck do you know about brains?” he asked Kevin.
“Okay – one, basic brain development was in high school biology; and two I dated a pre-med neurosurgeon and she showed me a lot of pictures of brains. That and we did it a couple times in the morgue. She was a weird one for sure. Then she developed the habit of necrophilia.” Kevin replied back.
Both Sarah and Donnie had a disgusted look on their face. “Seriously?” asked Sarah.
“Yes.” Kevin answered. “Fact – one in seventy-five people involved with working with the deceased are either closeted necrophiliacs or become necrophiliacs within one year of entering their profession of choice.”
“You know, you lead a very strange and disgusting life!” Donnie stated.
“That will be a discussion for another time.” Kevin insisted. “Meanwhile, we need to figure out if this is an isolated incident or if we are going for come across some friends of old corny here who may be more developed mentally and intend to have us for dinner!”
Just then, the door to the lab began to open. At the entranceway was a woman, somewhere in her late forties to early fifties, with short brown hair and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She was also wearing a lab coat and looked rather crossed over the face there are strange people in the facilities.
“Doctor Bellum?” the lady asked. “Why are you here and why are there others in here with you.”
Kevin approached the woman. “Relax, we have authorization to be here…”
The lady interrupted Kevin, who had shown her a security pass he was wearing around his neck “Well, first of all, that says ‘Guest’ on it, and second of all guests are not allowed in here.”
Sarah looked up from her work station and recognized the woman as Julia Katz, the associate director of this particular branch of the Alberta Research Council.
“Miss Katz? What are you doing here?” Sarah asked.
“I was alerted by security that someone was doing unauthorized lab work.” Julia responded in a cold, methodical way that seemed to raise suspicions of what her intentions are.
“I apologize, Julia, but I tried calling the offices and there was no answer and when we came here, there appeared to be no one here.” Sarah said in her defense.
“Doctor Bellum, if this were normal operating practices, I would have your guests escorted and put you up for disciplinary action.” Julia seemed to be droning on in a catatonic tone. “However, in light of recent events, I am willing to look the other way if you take everyone out of here now and leave Vegreville immediately.”
Kevin spoke up “Just a second here. Hi, we haven’t been properly introduced here. Kevin Brody, assistant regional manager, Cargill AgHorizons…”
Julia coldly interrupted him. “Oh sweet Jesus, you are real. I thought you were a hoax or joke created by some of our lab technicians here. Did you really think do insane experiments that sin against nature?”
Kevin looked confused. He tried to speak “I don’t quite follow you.”
Julia walked towards Kevin and simply stared at him. “For a creature that seems intelligent, you are quite blissfully ignorant towards science, research and development.” She said softly in his ear.
Sarah looked perplexed by Julia’s actions. While Sarah had only met her boss a few times, this seemed totally out of character for her. “Are you okay?” Sarah asked.
Julia looked now at Sarah and started to walk towards her. “I am perfectly fine, Doctor Bellum. In fact, I have never felt so liberated in my entire life. And all it took was a little nano probe that one of our teams in Calgary were developing. Nanotechnology is quite fascinating, would you not agree, Mister Brody?”
“I would say so.” Kevin replied.
“Doctor Bellum, what would be your opinions?” Julia directed her question to Sarah.
“I work with plants mostly so I wouldn’t be qualified to offer an opinion.” Sarah responded.
“Pity,” Julia said with little or almost no emotion. “Have you seen what Vegreville looks like since you returned?”
“We came from the back way so no.” Sarah said.
Julia motioned for everyone in the room to follow her. “It would be beneficial for you all to come with me.” She insisted.
Vegreville looked the same for most parts. Well, except for the fact that the entire town was covered in giant growths of vines. Every house, business, landmark, and stranded vehicles were all covered in the growth of vines. Kevin looked at one of the vines with some interest. They appeared to be in a state of perpetual motion. He broke one of the growths off and studied the inside and became startled to see the growth he broke off started to grow again.
“Fascinating, is it not?” Julia Katz said. “The age of the plant has begun and all it took was the first strike of mankind’s need to destroy one another.”
Kevin looked to Sarah and asked her “Did you know anything about this?”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. “Not to my knowledge. This seems way out of my area of expertise anyways.”
“Okay, so the corn monsters we came across, are they part of this little project of yours?” Kevin asked Julia.
Julie replied with machine-like precision. “No. The mutated corn stalks are an abomination caused by man’s own design. We are perfection. We are the next form of evolution. We are the perfect blend of superior technology and plant simplicity, minus the insatiable need of man to destroy and annihilate one another.”
Kevin looked intrigued and then had a look on his face like he just came up with a brilliant plan to maybe stop or at least cripple this manmade form of evolution.
“So, let me pose this question to you Miss Katz,” Kevin spoke and continued to go on. “Am I right in assuming that the nanoprobes you have inside you are infused with the genetic material of plants?”
Julia responded. “Correct.”
“And by your earlier tone and condemnation of the human race, am I to also assume that the plants wish to be the dominate form of life on Earth, right?”
“Assumption correct”
Sarah and Donnie both looked confused as to Kevin’s tactics. “What are you doing?” Sarah asked quietly.
Kevin looked back at the Bellums. “Trust me on this one, okay?” Kevin told them as he went back to speaking to Julia, who seemed more machine than woman by now. “So, let me pose this question to you – if you have been given this ability by humans, which is a creature whom you abhor and view all of their designs to be ‘abominations’ like the corn monsters, does this not make you and your fellow vines here an abomination?”
Julia paused. She looked up, as if she was processing the question posed by Kevin. “No” she replied. Then another pause “But if we are made by imperfect beings… impossible… we are perfection… but created by imperfection…. system error… error!”
Suddenly, the head of Julia Katz, associate director of the Alberta Research Council began to balloon up while she kept repeating “System error!” over and over until the head finally exploded. A green-colored sticky substance sprayed all over the place. Even the vines, which were once strong and vibrant, began to shrivel up and die. As everyone wiped the green slime-like substance off of their respective faces, Donnie posed the question to Kevin: “How in the hell did you know to do that?”
Kevin took off his glasses to clean off the slime and answered Donnie’s question. “It was a basic logic paradox question I posed to… whatever the fuck that was. Surely I thought they would have made them able to withstand logic paradoxes.”
Sarah picked up one of the shriveled up vines. “I don’t understand. Why activate a faulty experiment if that what this is.”
“I have a feeling that perhaps like the corn monsters, this could all be beta tests for something more sinister.” Kevin stated.
Donnie, once again covering Hailey’s ears, asked “What the fuck are you going on about now?”
Kevin just looked at Donnie and matter-of-factly said. “I have no fucking clue right now.
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